What isn’t spoken about enough is how quickly a small or big injury can tweak a player’s performance by a lot. Here is a list of some Major League Baseball players who faced that challenge and unfortunately couldn’t overcome it.
David Wright:
Wright played with The New York Mets for 14 seasons. For the most part, Wright was a pretty great hitter for The Mets. Slashing .301/ .382 / .506 with an OPS+ of 137. Wright was also pretty up there with also being a top 10 third baseman in the league. With that being on pause after he sustained a stress fracture in his back in 2011 which led him being on the Injured list for over a month. Things started to spiral after 2015 since being diagnosed with a chronic back condition, spinal stenosis. Only playing 77 games after that.
Stephen Strasburg:
Some fans who have been watching this sport for a while are quite familiar with Strasburg. Not only was the No.1 Overall pick in the 2009 Draft but he has also starting pitcher for the Washington Nationals. Strasburg had an impressive start early on in his career after making his Major League Debut a year after he was drafted and putting up a 2.91 ERA that same year with 68.0 IP, 56 H, 22 ER, 5 HR, 17 BB, and 92K’s. Which is insane being his first season. Later having to undergo Tommy John surgery. However it didn’t stop there. Numerous surgeries and injuries were piled onto the pitcher which led to a decline in his performance. He was still considered one of the best pitchers even having to go through that. Shortly after winning World Series MVP in 2019, helping the nationals get their first World Series trophy. Unfortunately later on only made 8 starts and retired in 2023. He was considered a Hall Of Famer.
Don Mattingly:
Mattingly was a first baseman for The New York Yankees, and also considered one of the best to put on a yankee uniform. Mattingly’s overall stats in his career hold a .307 BA, .358 OBP, .471 SLG , .829 OPS. With that all coming to a pause after horseplay with a teammate, Bob Shirley which was denied by the two. This led to a serious back injury and decline in his performance. When Don retired, he made it very clear to people that this decision was for his family and more specifically for his kids. Since they were starting up high school and he wanted to be present for that. Though many believed that wasn’t the truth and blamed it on his back injury. ,
Nomar Garciaparra:
Garciaparra was a shortstop for a handful of ball clubs, The Boston Red Sox, The Chicago Cubs, The Los Angeles Dodgers, right before finishing his career with The Oakland Athletics in 2009. Nomar was a great hitter, averaging 48 doubles, 30 homers, 120 runs and 117 RBI’s. Adding onto his fantastic career, the shortstop was a six-time all-star, AL Rookie of the year and AL Silver Slugger. During his career, he suffered a pretty serious wrist injury. While it didn’t stop there, he faced a series of injuries which messed with his overall performance when he later realized it wasn’t worth the struggle and pain and retired on March 10th, 2010.
Jose Fernandez:
Fernandez is known all across the world due to his heart shattering death which had the MLB world in shock. When looking back on The Marlins starting pitchers stats, we can only mourn what could have been an amazing MLB career, nonetheless he was a great pitcher for the Marlins after posting a 2.58 ERA, a 38-17 record, 471.1 IP, and 1.054 WHIP. Fernandez won rookie of the year with the Marlins in 2013 and following that he was also a 2X All-Star. Jose Fernandez faced a tragic death on September 25th, 2016 after being involved in a boating accident.
Yordano Ventura deserves a spot here